


Sucker For Pain

by Shinju_Tori



Series: Lover Dearest [1]
Category: Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Boomerang is Pansexual and nothing can tell me otherwise, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Meta-humans gonna do badass shit, POV First Person, Pre-Movie(s), Stream of Consciousness, creepers gonna creep, in spots at least, references to DC comic characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-17 07:14:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8134994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinju_Tori/pseuds/Shinju_Tori
Summary: Alternatively Titled: Heaven's Light6 years ago, Peter Orlov met an Australian, flirted with him, protected him, and trusted him with his biggest secret.In return, the Australian loved him with no price besides his love in return.





	1. I'm Dying Slow But The Devil Tryna Rush Me

_**6 YEARS BEFORE THE EVENTS OF SUICIDE SQUAD** _

I try not to judge a book by their cover.

Or in this case, asshole drunk( _?_ ) in the bar that I work at.

( _To be fair, being a multi-armed meta-human of Russian descent, that is wanted by New Jersey state police, who can surprisingly easily hide his extra features with only_ _an overly large hoodie, a medical mask, and a pair of sunglasses, doesn't give me much room to talk. Hence my general lack of judging others by their looks._ )

The ( _maybe?_ ) asshole has been eying me the whole time I've been working might be an exception to my code, though. He arrived a couple hours after the doors to Rasputin’s Lair ( _I cringe every time Jackie's accent mangles ‘Rasputin’ into the gross amalgamation ‘Rahlsputan’_ ) opened up and sauntered right up to the bar. He had grinned at me, a split in his lip pulling at the corner of his smile, before asking for a plate of Jager Bombs with the Australian equivalent of an American hillbilly accent that shouldn't be as attractive as I find it to be.

( _I will admit that I have a thing for accents, especially the ones based out of British English. My last lover was an Irishman named Colin who was also a fish meta-human. He was kind enough but we both agreed that things wouldn't work out between us. We were now sorta penpals._ )

I made his requests quickly ( _would've gone quicker with my other arms helping but there was a reason I was in hiding after all_ ) and watched him out of the corner of my eyes as he stared intently at my primary hands mixing his shots up, as if I was a priest making a sacrifice to a God. The man wasn't particularly unattractive, quite the contrary. Another positive thing he had going for him was that he didn't smell as bad compared to some more unsavory people in Gotham City that frequented the bar.

That is to say that he smelt more of cheap cologne and what I thought might be gunpowder than BO and stale beer.

I noted that he had a black eye as I set the shots in front of him, and when he grinned at me again, my attention was drawn first to his front left tooth, which was gleaming gold, and then to the split in his lip. His lovely soft looking lips that I wanted to capture between my teeth and gently bite into.

I blush and hastily look further down to his strong jaw and muscular neck that were a bit on the scruffy side. I was actually a bit charmed by how he somehow managed to pull off the obvious beginnings of mutton chops. He had to be at least 25 years old so it was odd to see it on someone so close to my age.

( _‘Still older than you by at least 7 years, Peter.’ a voice that suspiciously sounds like my twin sees fit to chime in at the back of my mind. I ignore it in favor of trying to determine if the curled hair of the stranger before me was a dark dishwater blonde or a pale brunette. My money was on it being light brown._ )

My eyes dart up to meet his own eyes which were a fascinating shade of gray-blue, like faded denim or blue steel, under thick dark brows. His nose looked like it had been broken and was reset oddly at one point, giving him this almost squint to his gaze that I actually liked. It made him look perpetually puzzled at things.

My heart flutters as his grin grows, crinkling the corners of his eyes handsomely.

He sets a 50 on the counter and winks at me. “Keep the change, spunk.” I wrinkle my nose at his choice of words and silently nod at him, slipping the bill into the cash box and giving myself the excess from the price of his shots. He winks at me again before he carries the plate away to the pool table in the back. I watch him nimbly jump over passed out drunks and duck under wildly waved arms.

( _I also notice how nice his ass looks in his relatively tight jeans and how broader his trench coat make his already wide shoulders seem. I mentally slap myself and start thinking about my sister having sex with our 4th grade school teacher to calm mini-Peter down._ )

I try to ignore him, but I can't help but glance at him throughout the night.

He is hustling the pool guys, but doing so, so subtly that I am ( _grudgingly_ ) impressed. He “loses” as many challenges as he wins, but makes sure that the ones that he does “win” don't alert the guys that he's cheating them so badly. After a few rounds, I realize that every time he “wins”, he looks over at me as if expecting me to be impressed with him. I then think that **he** thinks I'm not, if his slight frown whenever he does look at me is anything to go by.

Finally, closing time comes at 3 in the morning ( _as always_ ) and I turn to the boat bell behind me. I ring it 7 times; 3 rounds of two strikes and then one solitary short strike. I turn back to the now quiet bar and shout, my voice muffled by face mask I am wearing, “Lights out!”

Groans and complaints fill the air but everyone eventually files out.

( _Or gets dragged out by someone else, but that's not my division. My division is cleaning up after all these asswipes. Vomit, and spilled alcohol, and pools of blood oh my! I swore I had enough teeth in an opaque plastic box that Joe and I leave under a sign behind the bar that reads “Former Eat-n-runs” to make the Tooth Fairy go broke at this point._ )

The Australian is one of the last ones out, and he paused at the counter to toss a couple of crumpled 20s into the chipped cheap dark blue glass vase that I use for tips while I wiped down a table nearby. He looked over at me and drawled “Serve up pints often, spunk?” I raise an eyebrow at his phrasing and decipher enough of what he said to say shortly, “I am to be here every day besides the Lord's day, stranger.”

He flashes me a smile ( _that gold tooth is really fucking with my libido, I swear to God_ ) and nods. He is almost out the door when I make a decision to call after him, “Pauk.” He looks back at me questioningly so I repeat, putting on my usual show of being a clueless Russian, “Paw-ook. It is what you may call me. In mother tongue, meaning is ‘Spider’.” Understanding blooms on his face before he nods and replies “Digger. Means ‘Soldier’ in Australian.”

Before I could question him further on that, he leaves me alone with the cook/bouncer Joe humming in the back to a popular song on the radio ( _something about heading to a castle to be made queen_ ) as he washed the dishes.

I looked the word up when I got back to the abandoned convent that I shared with my twin.

Sure enough in one of the first online slang dictionaries for Australian I find, it says “Digger: a soldier” and I idly wondered who ( _or what_ ) he fought to earn that name. Curious, I also look up “spunk” further down the page, and it reads “Spunk: a good looking person (of either sex)”.

I chuckled humorlessly, glancing up at my reflection in the cracked mirror above my dresser. I didn't see how my mutations could be considered good looking and my disguise purposefully makes me look worse so most people ignore me.

He must have been really drunk is all.

( _And yet there is a part of me, as I climb into my silk hammock, that hopes he wasn't drunk at all and prays that he really meant every word he said…_ )


	2. I'm A Fool For Pain, Yeah I'm A Dummy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: There is sexual harassment/implied rape mentioned in this chapter!! Tread carefully!

Digger becomes a regular of sorts as the days grow shorter and the nights longer.

He occasionally shows up once or twice a week, orders seemingly random mixers that always have energy drinks in them ( _I_ **_could_ ** _warn him about the health risks associated with such things, but he seems the type to enjoy the threat of danger so we both pretend those risks don't exist_ ) before going off to hustle some pool boys for the rest of the evening.

After the second time he shows up, I drop the dumb Russian act and speak to him as I normally would. I could tell that it made a bunch of the others, namely Joe and his work buddies from his day-job, relax because if I spoke to him with my normal voice, it meant he’s cool to stay in the bar.

Nevermind the fact that a good 80% of our short conversations when he comes in and when he leaves revolves around pick up lines. It was actually a contest between the two of us who could come up with the nerdiest and/or silliest pick up lines.

( _Digger was winning but that had more to do with the fact that I am easily amused than any good pick up lines to be honest…_ )

Besides our little game ( _and the fact that he doesn't try molesting me while I am working_ ) I mostly like him because he actively tries to defuse most fights before they can even happen. I'm very pleased to notice that the number of teeth that get tossed into the “Eat-n-Runs” box decreases whenever he was in the bar.

There's only one time I ever saw him start a fight though, and that was over an item I noticed he always had on him.

( _That was also the first time that Digger and I did the horizontal mambo as well. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself..._ )

You see, I had gotten a glimpse of what looked like a fluffy pink stuffed unicorn tucked in an inner pocket of his coat after seeing him in the bar for the third or fourth time. When I questioned him about it at closing time, he told me that her name was Pinky, and that she was a good luck charm before he left.

The sad fondness on his face told me there was more to the toy than what met the eye.

( _I understood the feeling of bittersweet memories. I had a necklace that had a slim tarnished silver cross set with garnets that had been in my family for generations tucked away under my shirt. I kept it rather than sell it for cash because my mother had given it to me before she_ ~~_was killed_ ~~ _had died. Sentiment is a powerful thing after all._ )

Some meathead named Jerry ( _A “regular” who would drunkenly flirt with me and call me slurs like twinky and slut. I didn't like him because, before Digger showed up, he would try to grope me as I waited tables and closed up the bar._ ) had decided to snitch Pinky while Digger was taking his turn in a pool game about 6 months after he first showed up at the bar.

To his credit, the Australian nailed his shot, but his expression when he turned to the Mexican was not of victory, but of anger. The man grinned drunkenly at him and slurred, wiggling the unicorn at him mockingly, “Nice girly toy ya got here, Digs! Your momma give it to you?”

His cronies laughed and I had a flash of Foresight where I could see the results of Jerry's actions before it even happened.

( _Blood splatters the floor as Jerry staggers back. I can't see who punched him though which is… unusual for my visions. Why can’t I see who punched him?_ )

Sure enough though, Digger’s immediate response is to punch him in the nose, and take the stuffed toy back as Jerry staggered from the force of the blow. The bar went silent as the meathead stood back up, wiping blood away from his nose clumsily. I watched as Digger looked over at me apologetically before proceeding to hand the guy's ass to him.

Eventually ( _read that as after 15 minutes of them brawling_ ) Joe, separates them with his power, literal oceans of ink from his tattoos forcing the pair apart. Joe looked to me for judgment and I called out “Digger wasn’t the one to antagonize him. Toss Jerry and his buddies out for the night.”

I added when Jerry and his friends started to protest at Digger’s seeming lack of punishment, “Digger will sit here at the bar and no one is allowed to speak with him or buy him drinks for the rest of the evening.” Digger obediently sat at the bar close to me while Joe “escorted” the rest out. I set a glass of water down in front of him before going about my job as bartender/waiter.

A few patrons try talking to him but a glance ( _a glare really_ ) from me sent them scurrying away. I actually got a bit worried by the Australian’s silence. Usually Digger was very noisy and complained easily about anything and everything that irritated him even the slightest bit.

For him to be this quiet is… unnerving.

When closing time came, I rang the bell as usual but snagged Digger’s arm before he could leave with the rest. “Be careful. Wait for a bit before leaving.” I tell him in a low tone. He looked surprised at me, but nodded in agreement. He waited at the bar as the other patrons left while I went around sweeping and mopping the floors and bussing the tables.

Joe waves me off as usual when it came to doing dishes so I leave the dirty ones in their bin with him and head out of the kitchen to the bar. I pause in the doorway watching Digger carefully sew up a tear in Pinky’s hind leg.  He murmurs to her, looking not so much angry as sad that she was ripped. He looks up, startled, when I tap on the counter lightly.

( _I pretended to not see the tears in his eyes as he looked at me as though he expects to be chastised for caring about a girlish toy._ )

I wordlessly tilt my head towards the door. He nods at me jerkily, finished his stitching, and stowed the sewing kit in his jacket ( _not his trench coat, where I knew he kept at least 4 cans of beer on him at all times, his varsity jacket which I never saw the back of that he wore underneath_ ) pocket as he gets up, subtly wiping his eyes. I walk shoulder to shoulder with him as we leave the bar. I nod at him, which he returns, before heading off towards home.

I round the corner before looking around. Once I am sure the coast is clear, I scale the side of the building, the hairs on my fingertips clinging to the bricks easily. Once I reach the roof, I lope across the rooftops, following the Australian in the street below.

He starts to lead me off towards a part of town I recall is full of petty thieves and murderers, people just doing small crimes to scrape by in this city.

I hum a tune at first as I follow him before I start to sing under my breath “I torture you, Take my hand through the flames… I torture you, I'm a slave to your games...I'm just a sucker for pain... I wanna chain you up, I wanna tie you down, I'm just a sucker for pain…” I pause seeing him duck down an alley, followed by at least 4 people.

I frown and leap across the street to the building in time to hear Digger drawl to the group of 6 people surrounding him, “G’day mates! What can I do for ya this ace evenin’?” I bare my teeth in an unconscious snarl as Jerry's voice sneers from below, “You can leave my boy alone amigo! I got dibs on that twink so beat it before I beat you!”

Digger scoffs “He seems like a grown lad, mate. He can probably choose who he wants to root with himself.” My heart pounds angrily as Jerry snarls “Peter's mine! That slut might spread his legs to anyone, but in the end he'll always come crawling back to me.”

I soundlessly drop down behind him and put a tremble in my voice as I ask “Jericho? What are you to be doing to Digger?” Jerry jumped and turned to face me. I cringed as he gave me a look that was nothing but hunger. He sauntered to my side and slung his arm over my shoulders.

“Nothing really Petey! Just letting this puto know who you belong to.” He proclaimed, gesturing to Digger. I glanced at Digger and brought my hand to my face. To Jericho it probably looked like I was being shy but I was signaling to the Australian to close his eyes. Digger raised an eyebrow but did as I asked.

I closed my own eyes, whispered “Don’t open them until I say so…”, and then gave control to the Spider.

Distantly I caught flashes of what was going on.

Of gunshots and screams.

Of pleas for mercy in both Spanish and English.

Of inhuman laughter that bubbled from my mouth.

Of blood gushing down my throat.

Of venom burning down my chin.

Of flesh and bone being split under my many hands.

Of sunwarm brick walls and rusty metal fire escapes that easily crumbled with a well placed kick and punch.

I came back to myself, my hoodie shredded by my extra arms, drenched in blood with the remains of at least 5 people around me.

‘ **Threat escaped. Coward.** ’ Spider hissed angrily to me.

I sigh and blink, realizing my sunglasses and surgical mask were long gone too, lost and probably destroyed in my frenzy. I look for Digger and spot him, backed up against the wall beside a dumpster, staring at me wide-eyed.

I hunch my shoulders and turn to run.

“Peter!”

I freeze and slowly turn back to see Digger reaching out towards me. “Don’t go.” He slowly approached me, his hand raised like I was a cornered injured animal.

( ~~ _“You are an animal, just like your mother!” He spat at me when I tried arguing with him that me and Petra were more than just what creatures he had triggered us into transforming into..._~~ )

I shook my head. “D-Digger please…” I whispered, backing away from him. I flinch as he gently touches my cheek.

To my surprise, Spider just whispers ‘ **Mate… Mine…** ’ before going quiet and letting him wipe blood off of my face. I stare at his jaw rather than meet his eyes. I try to ignore the sensation of drying blood on my hands and arms as I bite my lip.

He finishes cleaning my face up as best he can before pulling off his beanie and putting it onto me. I look at him confused as he adjusts it low onto my head. He muttered “Need to cover your jaw… “ and pats himself down.

He grinned in triumph as he pulled out a creased dark blue bandana from his pants pocket and carefully tied it around my mouth and nose like a gangster. I keep staring at him as he shrugs off his trench and carefully drapes it over my shoulders. He made sure none of my extra arms could be seen and quickly lead me out of the alley.

I look up at Digger's oddly serious expression and quietly ask “Why are you…?”

Digger was silent for a while before he softly said “I knew a meta like you as a kid. Nice bloke but everyone was scared of him because he was red-bellied black snake. People in town ended up killing him out of fear when I was 15…” He looked down at me and smiled sadly “You remind me of him a good deal…”

I looked down and asked “So you don't find me… ugly or frightening?” He stopped under a street light and turned me to face him. He tipped my head back and gently touched my covered lips with his thumb.

“Never. If anything, I think you're more beautiful than before.” Digger told me. I teared up and mumbled “E-Even though I am an animal and a murderer?“ He nodded gently cupping my cheek, wiping the tears away.

“Yeah… now let's get you home…” He murmured as he guided me back towards the Slums... 


End file.
